So long sugar

In the last two years, I’ve been exploring a life without processed foods, specifically sugar. The journey began by doing a 30 day Green Smoothie challenge – one smoothie a day. I found GreenSmoothieGirl but there are many green smoothie advocates out there. After those thirty days, I found a new enjoyment of greens…spinach, swiss chard, kale, bok choy…

The 30 day smoothie challenge became a daily habit but I had some other areas I wanted to enhance in my life. I found my usually calm skin irritated in the winter months which makes sense with the lack of Vitamin D. I found a simple recipe geared to combat skin irritation: lightly sauteed greens, olive oil, fresh chopped garlic and ginger. Sometimes I top it with an egg. You don’t always know what your body needs so it’s good to keep trying new things until you hit pay dirt. Once I made this warm salad (comforting in cold weather, too) I couldn’t stop eating it. My body roared in response, “finally you’re feeding me!”

I began this green journey for my skin but the major, most noticeable benefit from “going green”? A cleaner mouth. At my next six month check up after continuing green smoothies, the hygienist and dentist kept exclaiming how clean, polished, and plaque-free my mouth appeared. This was of interest to me since I already have a pretty strong dental record – one cavity in my life. The fact that my mouth seemed so much healthier and cleaner from what was usually a good report anyway was pretty significant.

Listening to my body became an important choice to continue making; I started this journey for one particular outcome but it opened up areas of healing for my body in other areas. I chose to be open to that.

In terms of skin wellness, the major factor seems to be sleep. Or my lack of it. More on that journey later.

The effort to add green to my life also came with the benefit of minimally processed ingredients (olive oil and a little salt being the baseline processed com
ponent). I didn’t deliberately cut out carbs, but my body became a lot less interested in processed ones.

The elimination of processed carbs also reduced my sugar intake. Fructose and its hidden sisters have certainly been under suspicion recently. I certainly had no idea how much processed sugar I consumed, especially through KIND and Kashi products – which are supposed to be super healthy. Major food manufacturers and the FDA are currently debating whether “added sugars” should be listed on packaging so consumers can actually know what they’re consuming. Hmmm.

Did I mention swapping sugar for greens helped level off my hormones and blood sugar? Markedly fewer afternoon meltdowns or PMS roller coaster rides? Right, that, too. Apparently those were also my body crying for relief from the sugar fixes.